The present invention relates to an intelligent cellular forwarding system and a method for using the same.
Call forwarding schemes are well known and widely used in telephone communication systems wherein a called party, knowing that they will not be at a particular communication device, specifies in advance one or more alternate communication devices to which an incoming call should be forwarded. The alternate communication devices in conventional call forwarding schemes may be identified in several ways. For example, the called party may provide a predetermined list of all possible alternate communication devices at which the called party may be reached. Preferably, the list of possible alternate communication devices are prioritized based on the frequency or probability of the called party being at a particular location. This, however, is inefficient in that the incoming call is forwarded to an alternate communication device according to a fixed priority order so that no means are provided for predicting in advance the communication device to which the called party most likely is located based on the location of the called party.
Instead of providing a list of all possible alternate communication devices, a single communication device may be specified to which all incoming calls are to be forwarded. This approach, however, is disadvantageous in that the called party is required to continuously update identification of the alternate communication device to which the incoming calls should be forwarded each time the called party changes location.
These conventional call forwarding schemes are disadvantageous in that they are xe2x80x9cdumbxe2x80x9d because they require the called party to identify their intended whereabouts in advance, either generally or specifically on a continuous basis. Accordingly, conventional call forwarding techniques fail to provide any means to automatically and intelligently predict in advance a particular communication device at which the called party most likely can be reached without continuous input from the called party.
It is therefore desirable to develop an intelligent call forwarding system in which the communication device to which all incoming calls are to be forwarded is automatically predicted in advance based on the location of the called party.
The present invention is directed to an intelligent call forwarding system for routing incoming calls to at least one of a plurality of alternate communication devices when the incoming call is not able to be transmitted directly to the called party cellular communication device. The call forwarding system in accordance with the present invention is xe2x80x9cintelligentxe2x80x9d in that it tracks the vehicle along its path of travel by monitoring the cell site that currently provides communication service to the called party cellular communication device. By tracking the history of most recent active cell sites, when the incoming call can not be transmitted directly to the called party cellular communication device, the system can automatically predict an alternate communication device where the subscriber is most likely to be reached and route the call accordingly.
In a preferred embodiment, the intelligent call forwarding system in accordance with the present invention includes a plurality of cell sites for providing communication service to the called party cellular communication device. Information from the cell site that is currently providing cellular communication service to the called party cellular communication device is stored in a memory device. A cellular central office selects at least one of the plural alternate communication devices based on the stored most recent active cell site, and the incoming call is forwarded via a network to the selected alternate communication device based on the stored most recent active cell site, when the called party cellular communication device is unavailable.
Furthermore, the present invention is directed to a method for using the intelligent call forwarding system described in the previous paragraph. The cell site that is currently providing communication service to the called party cellular communication device is monitored as the vehicle travels and information regarding the current active cell site is stored in the memory device. At least one of the plural alternate communication devices are selected based on the most recent active cell site stored in the memory device. When the called party cellular communication device is unavailable, the incoming call is forwarded to the selected alternate communication device.
Alternatively, instead of storing only the most recent active cell site, a history of most recent active cell sites, including the most recent active cell site, may be stored in the memory device and the direction of travel of the vehicle may be determined therefrom. Then, when the current active cell site becomes inactive because the cellular communication device is no longer available, the selection of the alternate communication device to which the incoming call is forwarded is based on the most recent active cell site and the direction of travel of the vehicle.